Sack the expensive consultants!

I'm grateful to the Guardian for allowing myself and a good comrade to respond on behalf of our Unison branches to last week's story comparing Tory plans for EasyCouncil with Labour's embryonic co-operative alternative (http://m.guardian.co.uk/?id=102202&story=http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2010/feb/25/council-cooperative-privatisation-barnet-lambeth).



I am particularly pleased that the paper has picked out the phrase "sack the expensive consultants" which I shall encourage shop stewards to photocopy and stick on every noticeboard they can find.



Whilst it may be true that our working life is one long mixed-ability lesson, the wealth and diversity of knowledge and talent in the workforce of any local authority is such that there is never an excuse to use consultants who cost anything up to (and sometimes beyond) a thousand pounds a day.



If our public service employers would trust the workforce - individually and collectively - and offer us the security which could unlock our ingenuity there is much that could be done.



The same lesson, in respect of lay trade union representatives, could of course also usefully be learnt on the first floors of both Congress House and Mabledon Place.

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